“I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas… There will probably be an impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool… What could be more glorious than to brace one’s self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it really was old South Wales. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? … how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town, and the comfort and honour of being our own town? … I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christianity has rightly named romance.”
CS Lewis for Beginners
Orthodoxy V: The Flag of the World
I have always liked “capture the flag” and even more, the board version, Stratego. It is probably good to put like a #7/Sergeant inside your bombs surrounding your flag, once the #8/Miner breaks through, he will need a friend to gain the ultimate prize.
But, once again, CS Lewis comes to the rescue, here is a good quote ok a few, regarding flags and military operations:
Lewis, Tolkien, TS Eliot, Vikings, Virgil, Bill and Ted: On History
The hardy romp through theories, stages and general phenomenon of history, as provided by Mark Tiberius Gilderhus in History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction, brings to mind the various intersections of a notion such as “historical consciousness” and a “philosophy of history” and various readings in cultural apologetics thus far.[1] It would be nearly a crime to not begin with material from C.S. Lewis, given his significant role in modern apologetics, and so we begin, working backwards perhaps though history to find our way.
[1] And as this was written during my final course in the online MA program in Cultural Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, a number of such connections flooded my mind. Were I to have written a thesis, this might be the outline of how it could have gone.
Lewis 104: Men without Chests, the Tao and the Abolition of Man
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful”
- C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Come visit our inaugural issue of An Unexpected Journal , “The Abol_Issue”” (very bottom) where we discuss C.S. Lewis’s critique of relativism in morality and modern education, and how not utopian but dystopian societies result, which put at risk our very humanity. But first, follow a brief discussion here … Continue reading
Lewis 101 / Tolkien 101: I’ve Seen Trees from Both Sides Now …
You look at trees and label them just so …
He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath the ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jeweled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother’s womb whence all have birth.
– JRR Tolkien Mythopoeia: To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though “breathed through silver” PHILOMYTHUS TO MISOMYTHUS
Lewis 102: The Heart of Lewis / Surprised by Joy
“It is difficult to find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton’s ‘enormous bliss of Eden’ (giving the full, ancient meaning to ‘enormous’) comes somewhat near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?”
– C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy
Lewis 103: The Weight of Glory
I’ve always heard zippy CS Lewis quotes, but when I tried to pick up one of his important sounding books like Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man or even the fictional Space Trilogy, it always seemed like a struggle. One Master’s degree in Christian Thought and Cultural Apologetics later … and it can still be a struggle. But struggle through his stuff, and others, we did. Hence this site … Continue reading
